Posts tagged ‘Politics / Government’

This Jester does not recall so much discussion on a president’s genealogy / vital records before. So as the President goes off to Europe, we once again hear about his ancestry ( Kenya,Hawaii, IRELAND). President O’bama through his mother has a 3g grandfather named Falmouth Kearney (and 3g grandmother Charlotte Holloway — let’s not forget the women) from Moneygall, (County Offaly), Ireland. The President’s direct ancestry back through the Dunham lineage can be proudly found at Moneygall’s website.

Apparently the good genealogical research is due to the village’s Anglican priest, Stephen Neill (a muse himself), who barely has any parishioners in the overwhelmingly Catholic area but is arguably its most popular figure.

It was he who, in 2007, pored through birth and baptism records of the Templeharry Church of Ireland, 3 miles (5 kilometers) outside Moneygall, and made the fateful discovery of Falmouth Kearney’s baptism. He had received calls from American genealogist Megan Smolenyak who was pursuing the many branches of President Obama’s family heritage. Megan, too, will be in Moneygall to meet the president. [see also“Finding O’Bama” ]

Stanczyk also awaits the President’s visit to Poland on Saturday. Let’s change the VISA requirements for Polish people to come to the USA to match the rest of the EU nations. After-all, Poland has been a part of the coalition in Afghanistan. Let’s reward this loyal ally with the same privileges as the UK or France or Germany! I would like to remind people that Poland was the nation who upon being restored to its rightful borders after World War I, took the time to honor America’s 150th Anniversary with their Emblem of Friendship in 1926 from the children of Poland to the citizens of America (see prior Stanczyk musing here).

Today this Jester was moved to tears at the Mass of Beatification for The Blessed John Paul II. The Mass just completed was beautiful ! Bless His Holiness, Pope Benedict and all others whose preparation and works made today such a moving mass.

Today is Part Two – This is where Stanczyk wanted to write about Karol Józef Wojtyła‘s genealogical lineage. Blessed be those whose long lineage gave us this magnificent man.

Karol Józef Wojtyła b. 18-May-1920 in Wadowice. He was youngest of three children born to Emilia Kaczorowska + Karol Józef Wojtyła Sr. His beloved mother died in childbirth in 1929 and thus the 4th child within her too must have perished.

Karol Józef Wojtyła’s parents were as named above. Karol Józef Wojtyła Sr. was born 18-July-1879 in Lipnik (near Bielsko). His mother, Emilia Kaczorowska was born 26-March-1884 in Krakow. They were married 10-February-1906 in Wadowice. Karol Józef Wojtyła’s family died in 1914 (sister Olga), 1923 (grandfather Maciej Wojtyła), 1929 (mother Emilia), 1932 (brother Edmund), 1941 (father Karol) leaving him a solitary pilgrim throughout his life.

Maciej WOJTYLA (paternal grandfather) was born 01-January-1852 in Czaniec. Anna PRZECZEK (paternal grandmother) was born 03-September-1878. Maciej also had a second wife: Maria ZALEWSKA born: 01-February-1861 in Lipnik , the daughter of Jozef ZALEWSKI. Feliks KACZOROWSKI (maternal grandfather) was born 26-June-1849 in Biala. Maria Anna SCHOLTZ (maternal grandmother) was born circa 1853.

The Wojtyła line continues backward with: Franciszek WOJTYLA + Franciszka GALUSZKA and one final generation: Bartlomiej WOJTYLA born circa 1788 Czaniec + Anna HUDECKA born 1792 Bulowice. The Wojtyła family are purported to be from Czaniec originally (near Biala in the south of Poland).

As a genealogist, I should point out that all of this information is not sourced and should be verified by church records.

Stanczyk honors, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, who is being beatified tomorrow (1st-May-2011).

I want to write two parts upon this pope. Part One, is I want to write about his religious lineage. Part Two (on 5/1/2011), I want write about his genealogical lineage. The parallels to that statement should be obvious, so I will not draw it. If you do not get it, then read a good book.

Both parts will start with Karol Józef Wojtyła‘s birth. If you look at the prayer card to the left, you will see:

Birth-Priest-Bishop-Cardinal-Pope-Deceased-Beatified. That is the timeline: 1920-1946-1958-1967-1978-2005-2011, a period 91 years. If canonization occurs then we may well be speaking about a century or more. The dates are to the left (uh, or above) on the prayer card. But that is not what I meant by the great pope’s religious lineage. What I mean is right here(Catholic-Hierarchy.org). So here is his religious lineage:

There is also another religious lineage. The great pope is the 264th pope in direct line back to Saint Peter (the Apostle). John Paul II, was not the longest reigning pope, nor was he the oldest pope. That is his papal lineage (also a religious lineage).

The known Catholic lineages are:

1. The Patriarchate of Constantinople claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Andrew.

2. The Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Mark.

3. The Russian Orthodox Church claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Andrew.

4. The Armenian Apostolic Church claims unbroken succession to the Thrones of Saint Bartholomew and Saint Thaddeus (Jude).

5. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Mark.

6. The Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (Indian) claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Thomas.

7. The Orthodox Church of Cyprus claims unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Barnabas.

8. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims succession to the Throne of Saint Philip.

9. The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem claims succession to the Throne of Saint James the Just, although this line includes Patriarchs in exile.

10. The Roman Catholic Church claim unbroken succession to the Throne of Saint Peter called “Prince of the Apostles”. This is the papal lineage of John Paul II.

Interestingly, the only religious lineage that does not go back to an undisputed Apostle is #9 above (the Patriarch of Jerusalem). Saint James the Just was not the Apostle James (brother of Saint John the Apostle), but the hotly disputed brother of Jesus. Having said that why are there no Orthodox Churches with lineages back to the two Apostles (and brothers), James and John? Stanczyk does not know! If anyone does, please email me.

Stanczyk has a question for the vast army of Genealogists out there on the Internet. Today’s blog has a picture of my deceased grandfather’s social security card. This card is brass (I think). Here’s the question: Did the U.S.A. ever issue metal social security cards ? Does anyone else have a metal social security card ?

Does anyone else have an oddity from an ancestor that you are puzzling over? Send me your comments and pictures.

In 1926, on the 150th Anniversary of the founding of the United States of America, the children and government of Poland had undertaken a massive effort of friendship with their Polish Declaration of Admiration & Friendship for the USA. Poland had only re-emerged 8 years earlier at the end of World War I, from nearly a 150 years of occupation! Imagine if you will, a nation occupied nearly the entire history of these United States of America who with the help of the Allied Powers in World War I (including the USA) and with the aid of Americans (USA and Canadians) who formed an expatriate army, known as Haller’s Army or the Polish Army in France. These Allied Powers through 1918 and Haller’s Army through the early 1920 skirmishes, re-established the borders of Poland between the two World Wars and bottled up Communism for another two decades.

You will be forgiven gentle reader if you have never heard of this gift from the people and government of Poland to the people and government of the USA on their 150th Anniversary of our nation’s founding. President Calvin Coolidge received the gift and placed it into the Library of Congress (LOC) where it was forgotten until 70 years later in 1996 when it was re-discovered. The LOC has digitized 13 of the 111 volumes which has the signatures of approximately 5.5 Million Polish school children. There is also an index to the location names of the schools in the other volumes that have not yet been digitized. The main LOC page (also reachable from the index page above is here):

The LOC has not produced a searchable index person names from the digitized volumes. Fortunately, there exists a web app with nearly 3,000 pages scanned to produce a person name index of nearly 250,000 people by the the PTG (Polish Genealogical Society) with a summary of the project so far here. The PTG searchable index is reachable from their main page:

and clicking upon ‘Declarations‘ on the left side of the main page. The page is in Polish. ‘Tom’ = Volume (type 1 – 13) and ‘Strona’ = Page. You can use the LOC website to locate the volume and page of interest to you and reach the same page here at PTG. You enter the TOM and the STRONA and click on the ‘Pokaz’ button to go to the image of that volume and page to read the names. Remember that most schools have more than one page. PTG however, also has a way to search on the names. In the first field (no name) you can type a last name and click on the ‘Wyszukaj’ button to search on the name. The check box (‘dokladnie’) should be left unchecked (to avoid having to enter diacritics) for the name you are searching on. Many American Polish names are spelled differently from their original names in Poland. You can overcome this somewhat by using a wildcard character at the end. For example, if Stanczyk wanted to search for ELIASZ or ELIJASZ or ELJASZ, he could enter ‘EL%’ and click on the ‘Wyszukaj’ button to search for those possible spellings.

The wildcard can also be used in the middle as shown in the picture below:

Stanczyk got all good matches except for number 2. In particular, matches 3,4,5 are probably Stanczyk’s ancestors, since Tom/Volume 13, Strona/Page 419-420 is for the school in the village of Pacanow from whence Stanczyk’s direct lineage comes from. Now I could use those Tom’s and Strona’s to bring up the image of the page with those signatures and save the image in my family history.

There is also a nice web page in the LOC, called Emblem of Goodwill with many details of the friendship between Poland and the USA. It also includes pictures of the artwork in the volumes and even a few photos of two classes.

The Biechow parish Stanczyk keeps writing about was shuffled amongst many administration units that changed as the borders changed, which in Europe was often. After the partitions started in 1772, my ancestors were briefly in the Austrian partition. In the Napoleonic era, they were a part of the Duchy of Warsaw and were in the Departmente of Krakow. Post Napoleon, they were in the Kielce wojewodztwo of the Congress Kingdom of Poland. My ancestral villages pretty much stayed put after that point and were in Kielce wojewwodztwo or gubernia depending on the whims of the czar until about 1918. Today, they are in wojewodztwo of SwietyKrzyskie.

The records were originally kept in Latin. The earliest Latin records were scant/terse, let me call them blurbs, like little Power-Point bullets scrawled upon the pages of the church books. Eventually they became more formulaic and I’d see what I call the Latin paragraph form (really a few sentences). Copies would be made and shipped to the Archdiocese Archives and these were often recorded in the Latin Box form that was prevalent in the Austrian partition. Napoleon while he was briefly in charge, instituted a format according to the Napoleonic code, that was written in the lingua franca of each locale. So about 1805, we see the church records being kept in a Polish paragraph form (quite long) as specified by the Napoleonic Codex. In 1868, the Czar decreed a change from Polish to Russian, but the Napoleonic format stayed, so the records switched from Polish paragraphs to Russian/Cyrillic paragraphs. So this jester since he was forced to, has acquired the ability to read enough Latin to read the genealogical blurbs of Catholic priests and is quite skilled in reading the Polish paragraphs and is still increasing his knowledge of Russian paragraphs, but has long since been able to pick out the salient facts of the vital records even in Russian with Cyrillic character set (as opposed to Polish language written in the Latin alphabet).

Now let me hasten to add, that this was true of Catholic church records. Obviously if your ancestors were Jewish, then you have additional burdens in your research, including reading Hebrew. The format of recording vital records also differed amongst the three partitioning / occupying Empires. Stanczyk writes from a Russian-Poland partition experience.

Having said that, in a very long preamble, today’s post is about the pre-partitioned, Polish vital records. In 1753 & 1754 these were Latin paragraph form (very terse still, but better than those of the 17th century). I want to examine a couple of these records for today’s discourse and ask for some help. Here is what we are dealing with …

Stanczyk’s eyes weary fast when trying to read these early Latin blurbs. Handwriting had not been perfected in those days. Also I find a good many misspellings on the family names or sometimes even the village names. This is still better than what was present in the 17th century. Each line starts with a day (month, year are usually assumed). These are really baptismal record (as opposed to birth), so it records the baptism, the parents and the God Parents of the baby and the villages of the people involved.

Now here is where Stanczyk is looking for help. Please take a look at the next image (click on it to see a full size copy) and help this jester understand the concept of ‘alias’. In this record we will see a surname of Michałek as an alias for Materna. Is this some kind of case of name “evolution”. The Michałek family name disappears and the Materna family name becomes a common village surname. Why would a surname become aliased? In these early Latin records, it happens a few times and Stanczyk is trying to understand what is happening and why?

This is the second part of my search for Tomasz and family. The first aritcle is here . This amazing find was done by my equally amazing friend from Krakow, Jacek. Stanczyk prized his great-grandfather Tomasz so much, Jacek made an extra effort on my behalf. Thank You Jacek (researcher / genealogist of the Sokolowskich from Swiniary/Biechow/Pacanow/Zborowek parishes).

This document is an alegata. Let me review a bit of Polish genealogical terms to help other new-to-Polish-genealogy researchers. The Polish archives have a few databases ( I have written of them before ), but the most critical to me so far has been Pradziad. If you search their database for Biechow (do not bother with diacriticals), you will find:

urodzenia – Births

małżeństwa – Marriages

zgony – Deaths

and … alegata – Addendum (other, miscellaneous).

So this is an addendum … to something. Now this alegata is fascinating on many levels to me. First off, it is from 1885 and it is testimonial from 1863 ! So this document recounts the events of 22 years ago (from 1885). Second, since it is the era from 1868..1918, it is written in Russian as is required and … also in Polish. Take a closer look…

Alegata from October 1885 about ...

This portion is written in Russian (old style Cyrillic). Notice the stamp which shows that a fee/tax was paid and the date: 4th-October-1885. The last words (bigger than the rest) mean.. BIRTH RECCORD. Oh, so this recounts a birth from 1863. To give you a place we read the first three lines …

Gubernia Kieleckie

Uezd Stopnickie

Parish Biechow

This is from the Russian Empire era where this portion of Poland is one of ten gubernias previously from the Duchy of Warsaw (Russian- Partition of Poland also known as Congress Kingdom of Poland before the czar made it direct territories of the Russian Empire which would last until 1918).

The three pages go on to describe the birth of a female child to Marcin Major & Katarzyna z Ozarowiczow. I like that this birth was originally recorded at 7pm (in 1863) and describes a birth from 5am. Such detail! It is commendable that their bureaucrats worked late into the evenings. Oh this is a quote of the birth record of my great-grandmother Aniela born Piestrzec (part of Biechow parish)! Oh so the Polish is a direct transcription from the church record of 20-July-1863.

All that was great! But the third page was a Marriage Certificate. I had waited so long to see my great-grandfather’s marriage certificate. Now I would have a definitive age and his parent’s names. I was disappointed that his age was not listed in the record?? Oh, well I know he was born 1835 +/- 2 years, so his second bride was as young as his children from his first marriage. My 50-ish great-grandfather was married again and I know in 1886 what happens (Stanczyk’s babcia comes along). It appears Tomasz is the town burgher and a farmer and now Aneila lives in Pacanow, while Tomasz still lives in Biechow. Wait a second, neither set of parents are listed. I know Aniela’s from the first two pages retelling her birth. But I had hoped to learn Tomasz’s parent’s names. Oh, this IS a disappointment!

Now I will have to track down his marriage record from his first marriage and that would be the late 1850’s, an era where no microfilm exists in Biechow. I do not even know where Julianna Kordos was born; I do know her parent’s names and her approximate age — so if I do find her record I will know it is her.

I do not know what to make of the data. There are years missing and the first year was the highest birth registration. 1831 seems to be an outlier with only 53 births. From reading in books, works in newsletters (like by Dr. Paul Valasek), and in my own grandmother’s parish of Biechow which is very nearby, I know 1831 to be a year of the Cholera epidemic. So perhaps an epidemic limited births (or at least their registration).

From birth records (so this may not be a complete/exhaustive list), we see the following villages make up the Swiniary parish:

Stanczyk want to weigh in on WikiLeaks and the many tangents that a WikiLeaks article can take.

I do not think Julian Paul Assange is correct; In fact I think he is breaking many laws and violating many standards of ethics. So US Supreme Court and US Attorney General Eric Holder listen up, so to speak.

First off, making threats like, ‘Do this or else I will do this” is an act of extortion. When I listen to NPR or read the New York Times or Philadelphia Inquirer, or even when I watch Fox News, I do not get threatened that act against their news/journalistic articles, I will have to bear the brunt of some kind of blackmail. Not even Rush Limibaugh gives voice to such as that. So if WikiLeaks is journalism, why does it make extortionate and/blackmail threats?

WikiLeaks and its supporters cannot espouse Free Speech and then attempt to deny the voices of other organizations via Denial-Of-Service attacks. That is thuggery to claim you deserve Free Speech rights, but then turn right around and deny others, their right to free speech on their web sites or in other endeavors. An awful hypocrisy. It also demonstrates a lack of understanding of Free Speech.

American has had the right of Free Speech longer than any other nation. As such, it has had to deal with many nuances related to Free Speech. It has long been acceptable to outlaw, yelling “Fire” in a movie theater or even to remove people from said theater for creating a disturbance. Free Speech does not allow such irresponsible or reprehensible actions. Free Speech also does not extend to people who make Hate Speeches or to people who incite violence. Those are not examples of Free Speech. Do you not see the principle that “Free Speech” cannot deprive others of their rights/liberties and be considered Free Speech.

Stanczyk has long been an IT worker. As such, data and information and the communication of such is governed by laws. These laws extend beyond national boundaries sometimes. Stanczyk saw how the latest “Cables” spanned such a breadth of data, that it covered many aspects of the human condition. For example, it was covered in sport news pages, because there instances of how Iran used sports to deal with internal political strife. Who would have thought that WikiLeaks would impact Sports? So too must there be data dealing with: HIPAA laws (privacy related to medical conditions), PI (privacy information and data) would seem to have been heavily violated. What about identity theft from WikiLeaks releases? Stanczyk likes his genealogy but also sees that Census data must be on ice for 72 years before being released to the public. So Free Speech and Freedom of Information has long had a defined context of limits.

Finally, the last concept is IP (Intellectual Property). WikiLeaks received stolen property from soldier Manning (whose legal/ethic problems are even worse than WikiLeaks). Assange might not have realized that when he received IP from Manning and that Manning stole this “valuable property” from the US Government, he not only violated receipt of stolen property, and violations of espionage, but also clearly violated many aspects of the Digital Millennium Act (both civil and criminal). By failing to return said information when the property owner demanded it, it made the WikiLeaks organization as a whole (including distributed agents) subject to confiscation of computer and other technology. This is best understood by comparing this to what happened in the matter of Apple Computer and Gizmodo on the iPhone prototype. IP is valuable and cannot be willfully stolen or received and cannot be denied from its rightful owner. There are many corporate espionage cases of late that also demonstrate the severity of IP theft and the civil/criminal aspects that accrue from those actions taken.

The many civil cases against Assange and WikiLeaks that come out of the distribution of data in violation of HIPAA, PI, or other identity theft matters and resulted in damage or losses of property or loss of life will keep lawyers around the world gainfully employed for a decade or more.

Assange is learning too late, that Journalists have editors and legal teams to vet stories against laws and customs and matters of ethics. Journalists do not make threats.

As Stanczyk sees it, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Russian Premier Putin have come down on the wrong side of this issue. Putin seems out of place for sure, when one considers how many Russian journalists have been killed. This jester has appreciated Mr Putin’s work with respect to Poland of late and has even written a note of consolation to Mr Putin when his nation has come under attack by terrorists, so it pains this jester’s Slavic soul to call Mr Putin out on this issue — just because Putin sought to lash out against the US in order to make points for Russia on the backs of this difficult issue.

Like this:

Czeslaw Milosz (June 30, 1911 – August 14, 2004), the Nobel Prize author, should have the 100th Anniversary of his birth commemorated, June, next year. I do not know why I took a fancy to this person who took my mind captive. It is probably because he was Polish (and a naturalized American) and his first name was the same as my ojciec (father). That got me to read this man’s works. But what kept me reading his works is his Captivating Mind and his way around the rhythm of language (quite extraordinary to be so talented in two languages). So I was reading a book of his, “The History of Polish Literature“; London-New York: MacMillan, 1969. When I read, I am rather immersive, so I read the text and Google the concepts or the author. It provides a richer experience for me. So I noticed that Milosz (or the concept that was Milosz) is about to turn 100!

This jester has many of this writer’s books in his personal library. I chose the Road Side Dog for a picture, because I am a long time dog aficionado and I have made a reservation, “to let” some of Milosz’s ideas for my own writings. So from my readings today in The History of Polish Literature“, here are a few memes and things for you think upon:

Marcholt – The Polish Aesop, particularly the connection to the Wise King Solomon

Sowizrzal

Melusine

Jan Dlugosz ( 1415-1480)

In the above list, the first three are literary characters, while the fourth is a historical figure and writer. His historical writings are a rich source. See Annales Poloniae. Jan Dlugosz endeared himself to me by teaching himself Cyrillic in order to be to source info from the Letopisi. So this jester identifies with Dlugosz and his need to read Cyrillic texts to have ready access to Russian information.

Alas, in the partitions of Poland by the three black-eagled Empires, my ancestors were mostly in the Russian-Poland partition, so reading Cyrillic handwriting and Russian language (pre 1918 language reforms) became a necessary skill. I think I dislike the Russification of the ELIASZ name into Elijasz. I still remember my Busia teaching me that our last name was in the Old Testament and that we were named for the prophet Elijah. In Polish, it appeared as ELIASZ. So when I got further into the genealogical research and I saw post-partition Catholic priests change the name into Heliasz and Elijasz, I saw something of a diminishing of respect for its biblical roots. But whether we are ELIASZ or HELIASZ or ELIJASZ or even ELJASZ or ELYASZ. I still see Elijah. In fact, amongst the Slavic peoples, other variations exist: Iliasz, Oliasz, and Uliasz. So now you know, that this jester’s family with the short name (6 characters) of which uncharacteristically, half of them are vowels is very much Polish with a very uncommon Polish name.

A Reasonably Complete Bibliography of Czeslaw Milosz can be found in the New World Encyclopedia article.

With this being National Polish Heritage Month and a good bit about Pulaski being written or even televised and of course the parades, I thought I would add to the milieu of this worthy American.

I said American, because on November 7th, 2009, Count Pulaski became an honorary American citizen, posthumously. It was put forth by Senator (now President) Obama. He is one of only seven individuals so honored, five posthumously. Count Pulaski saved General George Washington’s life with his valor and service, without which there might never have been a USA. It was from this heroic action that he received his Brigadier General commission.

Sadly, the Brigadier General was killed in service to our nation, at the siege of Savannah. His his final resting place is still disputed between a burial at sea and a location in Georgia. He was the Father of the American Calvary. His banner for his legion was created by some Moravian women from Bethlehem, PA. There are nearly 8,000 mentions of “Count Pulaski” in Footnote.com database. Many are in the Continental Papers, but today’s genealogical / historical treasures come from the PA Archives (also in Footnote.com). Since this jester now resides in PA, I have included two pages from the PA Archives of the soldiers of Pulaski’s Legion who were from PA.

Like this:

Some say that 10/10/10 is a doomsday date. Others say 12/21/12 or 12/12/12, when the Mayan calendar is said to end. I say all this pressure of not knowing is stressful.

This fixation on Doomsday reminds me of the plethora or Protestant prophets who went around America, predicting the date of the end of the world. Some even re-computed and re-predicted when their doomsday rolled around and the world failed to expire.

This device to my left is an authentic doomsday device. It can be purchased here:

The good thing about this doomsday device, for budding megalomaniacs, is that when it fails to bring about the end of the days, you can still use it as a four port USB hub. Thus I find this more useful, then say, Glenn Beck ( a modern doomsday prophet), because it serves some other purpose besides what it purports to be.

William Miller was one such preacher. His predicted date was 10/22/44. 1844 that is. Needless to say, Miller and his Millerites were wrong! Do you know what 10/23/1844 was known as? “The Great Disappointment”. Perhaps we can re-purpose that label for Glenn Beck or any other of these modern day doom and gloom sayers. Here are 220 “Date Setters” all of whom were wrong.

Sadly, unlike the Hale-Bopp comet that came and went, Beck and his ilk have not made like Heaven’s Gate Devotees and disappeared. Perhaps in 2012 or in 2016 they will disappear from the airways when they will no longer have a Barrack Obama to rail against. Every yin must have a yang. And so it is true for every ding -dong.

Have a Happy 10/10/10! See you next year on 11/11/11 and by all means do not forget to look me up, 12/12/12. After that we should be good for another century.

Stanczyk, was traipsing through some archives this week for the Suwalki gubernia. In particular, the parish records for Wizajny . One thing I noticed was how complete the church records are. It was very complete (the Roman Catholic records) from 1808-1884. It is too bad that my ancestors did not come from this parish ! However, if your surname is Narkiewicz, your ancestors do — how fortunate for you.

So I was reading the church books (or the microfilm anyway) for 1867-1875. Well as you may or may not know 1868 is the year the Czar proclaimed that the Polish records in Vistula Land gubernias (formerly Congress Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Warsaw before that) be written in Russian forever more (or at least until 1918 which signaled the end of Russian occupation of Poland — and the records returned to being kept in Polish). So this multi-lingual, genealogical jester was reading Polish in 1867. As the calendar year flipped over, I was wondering if the next year (1868) would be in Polish or Russian — i.e. how fast did the Czar’s ukase get implemented. I was surprised twice. 1868 started off being written in Polish, but about half way along, the church records swithced over to be written in Russian.

So 1867 was all Polish. Then 1868 was about a half year in Polish and half year in Russian. By 1869, all of the records were in Russian. I was always curious about this. because in the ancestral parishes of my grandparents, there were no records available from this era (only 1875-1884 on LDS microfilm). In case, you were wondering, the format was paragraph format, still written in the manner prescribed by Napoleon’s Codex. Let me point out a not so obvious bonus to American Polonia.

Because you can read the Polish records for the period immediately before 1868, you can learn the family surnames and village names of your parish as they were in Polish and this will help you translate the Russian surnames. Having a familiarity of the village names means you need not struggle with the transliteration from Russian/Cyrillic to Polish/Latin before making your best attempt to “translate” the proper nouns.

Have a Happy October, which is the National Month of Polish Heritage in the United States.

The United States has its own National Archives (NARA). Well so too does Poland and for the European nations their archives go back centuries! Today I want to speak about the home land’s archiwum. Poland’s archive is on the Internet, po angielskiu is at:

If you get the Polish version (po polskiu), just click on the British Union Jack flag and you can see the English language version. Now I am jabbering about this today, because the PGSCTNE sent me their newsletter yesterday and in it was an article by Kahlile Mehr (whose presentations I have enjoyed many times). In it he speaks about the European archives on the Internet. So I posted on my avatar’s LinkedIn page a discussion, in Polish Genealogists, to see how many people have availed themselves of the Polish Archive’s databases.

Now I have used the Pradziad database before to see what kind of vital records are held in archives (and those archive locations) for the parishes in Poland that Stanczyk’s ancestors come from (Biechow, Pacanow, etc.). I have from time to time tried to garner something of value from the Sezam database over the years to no avail. Well there are also IZA and ELA databases. Go here to see the four databases covering Poland’s State Archives. Now Kahlile’s article published in PGSCTNE’s “Pathways & Passages” newsletter talked about ELA and he said you could find “residence books” in ELA. Now these are not historical directories, but are inventories of families residing in some village (not necessarily parish) for some year(s). So I searched this database for my villages (including those villages that were NOT the parish).

I got a lot of hits. The titles were in Polish. Ok Stanczyk, trohe rozumiem po polskiu. So to make sure I understood the titles returned I would cut and paste them into Google’s Translator, which does well enough to give me the gist of what I will find in these “fonds”. It even gives me the contact info for the archive location holding said title/fond.

I love Pradziad and it definitely helps me plan for research in Poland. But now I am beginning to get a little savvy with ELA. I did find some possibilities. But I found one extraordinary nugget that I must go see. I found a Cadastral Map document for one of my ancestral villages. These are like the historical USA, Plat Maps which list land owners. Now I was surprised because Stanczyk’s ancestors come from the part of Poland that was in the Russian partition of Poland (often denoted, Russian-Poland, in US Census or Ellis Island Ship Manifests). I was surprised because I was told that Cadastrals were mainly in the Austrian or Prussian partitions of Poland. Now to be sure, my ancestor’s villages were just across the Vistula (Wisla) from the Austrian partition and for a few years were a part of the Krakow wojewodztwo (or departement in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw). So I guess they did a Cadastral map for this village. Now I know it exists and I must go see it.

So Khalile, let me just say, “THANKS!”

You should go search the Pradziad, ELA and IZA and SEZAM databases. Oh, you do not need to worry about diacriticals in your searches. In fact. I recommend you leave them out rather than use the wrong one or miss one. I tried it both ways, as Pacanow and as Pacanów. Both returned the exact same results. Likewise for other villages I tried. So fire up Google (or whatever translator you prefer) and go search and discover what treasures are in Poland’s State Archives.

Do not forget about the Church Archives or the actual Parish’s books or the USC offices. But at least the Polish State Archives have their library catalogs on the Internet.

Stanczyk, apologizes for being derelict of duty. Has it really been 2.5 months? Much has happened since my twin daughter Valeria died, that required Stanczyk’s attentions. Oddly it is another death that happened 80 years ago that caught my attention, as I try to muse along.

I was reviewing some digital pictures I took years ago of a January 22nd, 1930 newspaper page that contained some columns posted by the Polish Consulate in Detroit. Stanczyk has long been a fan of the Dziennik Polski and I have just this Labor Day weekend, posted an update to my index of Polish peoples whose names appeared in the Dziennik Polski newspaper in various columns (birth announcements, funeral cards, marriage announcements, divorce announcements, class pictures from local High Schools, and even Polish Consulate postings). So this muse added another 64 names to my index (over 20,100) people now:

It has been two years between updates (this fool’s Mac died, just before the economy died). So I have finally gathered a sundry of open source (i.e free) tools to edit/post files to web sites on an MS Windows laptop (distasteful). So look for future updates.

At any rate, I found a Kędzierski who may or may not be related to a family that my grand-uncle Jan married into listed. This caught my eye and also a communique about a Marjanna Skowronkówna. It appears her family in Poland (via the court in Jaslo in Krakow area) are trying to determine for certain her death. This woman was the daughter of Jan Skowron and his wife Barbara nee Filasow, was born 1st October 1866. She came to America the second time in March of 1913 (remember this is a 1930 newspaper posting) and the family has heard nothing since 1914 when she was last known to be a housekeeper for Greek-Catholic priest, V, Dobry in Uniontown, PA. As I said, this was posted 22-January-1930 issue of Dziennik Polski, in Detroit, MI [in case an ancestor reads/Googles this blog].

Now the above was written in Polish (I used Google Translate to help me), so it was not the fact of a daughter being deceased unbeknownst to her family that caught my eye, but the fact that her birth date, her parents’ names and her birth place were given. What immensely valuable genealogical data can be found in these Polish Consulates communiques!

Now as for Pawel Kędzierski, a relative of his living in France, named Michal Kędzierski, was looking for him. They gave Pawel’s last known address as the state of Ohio. Note to Fool, check to see if these Polish Consulate postings appeared simultaneously through out USA Polish newspapers; I say this since we see Ohio and Uniontown, PA being written about in a Detroit, MI newspaper.

For those who read Polish fluently here is the clip of Marjanna Skowronkowna’s communique:

Ok, perhaps you think that Washington D.C. has a rather large concentration of fools/jesters/harlequins and this is merely Stanczyk pandering some professional courtesy to his Professional peers. I can hardly blame you for thinking them like myself. The difference is that they get paid to be fools and Stanczyk is just an amateur. Of course, if you want Stanczyk for the Senate, write me in this fall in PA’s senate race. Then Stanczyk too can be a professional fool and surely I can do no worse.

I was lamenting the Library of Congress changing their links again and breaking my web pages. As many of you know, I have a web page on Dziennik Polski (the Detroit daily Polish language newspaper). This jester is rather fond of newspapers for their value in their historical context and for their use in genealogy. So I was reviewing my web page when I noticed the LOC link broke again. Damn! I am fixing that.

I did a little googling to find the new page. Instead I stumbled across the Congessional Record itself. Fortunately, I had written, the 108th Congress, 29-September-2004, and page S9931 in my article on the web. This was enough for me to locate the exact page in the actuall Congressional Record which available online (1998-present). Here is the link:

scroll down to number 120 (which equates to 29-September, 2004) click on the link in Senate column: S9867

this loads a PDF document. Scroll to bottom type in field next to Go to page button, then type S9931 and click

This will have to suffice, until I fix my link. At least you can find my reference and more importantly, it is a valuable resource for research (albeit primarily on the doings of fools in D.C.). Be a good electorate and read…then vote informed with FACTS not the current rhetoric that tries to masquerade as facts when its is just a freak show misrepresentation. The circus is always in town and right now the clowns run amok.